Epoch
by BonJiro
Summary: The two of them held fast to routine, capturing their affair within hidden hours to leave it there, untouched by the rest of their days. But even the faithful ticking of the clock can become strained enough that the hands no longer move, no matter how much one might will them to, when weighed down by the gravity of what they had allowed. [OneShot]


The lifeless silence within the castle walls haunted her in the dead of night.

Wakeful, without the reprieve slumber would bring to a tired and tattered mind, the Princess lay draped in the false comforts of satin sheets. Quiet had come to devour the very world around her, making it seem a hollow, artificial thing; an empty stage bereft of an audience, waiting for the spotlight of the morning to revive it. Nightfall brought a subtle, sanguine madness to her heart, she found, to float pallid whispers passed pointed ears. It came trickling from the whitewashed brick and mortar, spoken softly by conscience to warn her of the unnatural and grotesque as Zelda patiently waited for such things to arise.

The embers of her fire had grown dim and weak, untended in the early morning hours as they wrought a ghostly shadow to flicker across her chambers. The air held chill enough that her breath would meet it hot, and any limb removed from the embrace of her blankets found discomfort; the darkness seeming to prickle at her tender flesh.

Even so, limply lifting her hand into the cold, Zelda would watch the back of it to ignore the disquieting sensation. The faintest spark wavered upon the triangular design, swirling and growing in strength until the light seemed to pour from her skin. Counting the seconds until they were matched by the audible fall of boots, the hopeful light would—like her embers—grow subdued, weakly wavering until it was snuffed out like a candle.

Each night she did this. Each night she listened as the silence was filled, and watched fate be callously ignored, spat on and tossed aside for a moment more. The slow creak of her doors had become a familiar thing, comforting and reliable, though it beckoned tragedy to stir. A hundred times or more he had come, precise and punctual and following the same course. Like clockwork, their sordid romance had ticked away many hours, but like the very cogs that moved faithful hands, the longer they held to it the more worn down they became. As with all things, it too would one day slow and stop, left a broken and rusted memory beyond repair.

Though she knew not when it would finally cease, the Princess both prayed for the end to come and feared each night may be their last.

The subtle click of the latch seemed to call out and invite, as much as the slow creak would protest it. His imposing silhouette as it swept toward her reticent outline looked as much a monster as it did the familiar shape of a lover, carried by timed strides—neither hurried, nor slow. The possessive scrutiny with which the fiery gold of his eyes cleaved to hers did not ask permission, but instead seemed to burn bright with the knowledge that he needn't have it.

The side of her bed was stolen, cold and lonely though it was, to accept his weight with a fond ease and drink deep of any warmth he brought to it. Where he perched, seeming so suddenly to take up all available space about her, let the glow of embers trace the lines of sinewy muscle while bathing half his stern features in the darkness still. Her gaze lingered on the exposed and thickly tanned flesh she knew so well now, it may as well have been a part of herself rather than worn on another.

Every scar, every story and tale of old that littered his flesh still... slender fingers had explored them all. Her pale lips had travelled the secret path betwixt sturdy shoulder and thick clavicle many times, straight and blunt teeth nipping the steep line of his neck to follow rhythmic pulse toward rounded ear. Zelda knew well the feeling of corded, steel-like arms wrapping around her torso to arch the small of her back and leave her at his mercy, pressed so forcefully against bare chest she swore their hearts would beat in time. She knew the rough sound of her name ground out from behind clenched teeth, and the pitching of her own breathless voice as it struggled to call his in turn.

Ever selfish, a rough and calloused hand came to hover over her side, a stifled patience in the way it drifted over curves without touch, only to curl thick fingers into the fold of her blanket. Drawing it back from her form without care for the cold he would reveal to her, it was quietly forceful; gentle and yet determined, as if there were never any choice in the matter.

Both of them knew better, but it was a lie they would happily accept.

A shiver ran through her bones as it often did, a mingling of the night's chill and the searing fire of his sweeping gaze. Zelda had long abandoned bedroom attire, forcing the habit of convenience—perhaps, within herself, she knew it would appeal to his sense of control. Vulnerable and exposed, the Princess offered no resistance though the cold clawed at pale skin, for she knew the Gerudo's warmth would soon be upon her.

But neither did she move to invite him. Never once had she made such a pivotal mistake as that, for it would require admitting to herself how desperate to keep him she'd become.

Closing crystalline eyes, she awaited his touch with a private greed, the thrill of it fluttering within her belly. Seconds passed, precious and lost once they had ticked by. It did not come. Instead, pointed ears perked to the whisper that came not of her mind, but of an enemy she had forgiven far too soon.

"Even after all this time," he began, a rueful tone slimly hidden by the low and rich timbre of his voice, "I'm still the one that must come to you."

She did not hide the small sigh that escaped her, the faintest shake of her head given as long lashes remained closed. "And it is a rare kindness on your part that I have come to cherish..."

"Or perhaps a cruelty even I could not have contrived," he offered quietly, leaning to reach of a lock of spun gold as it sat splayed across her silken pillow. "Feeding a parched man drops of water while withholding a lake."

"Would you rather I allow him to die of thirst?" Crystalline eyes opened enough to drift toward his profile, iced over with frozen emotions he would only ever be able to guess at. "If I gave any more than this, we would both have drowned long ago... You know that better than anyone, Ganondorf."

A distant stare echoed out between them, heavy with pathos and resentment, though filled with fragile things neither had the heart to truly feel. These impossibilities stalked them always, hissing at their defiance to spit poison upon whatever unnatural sensation they entertained. Its onset had been almost imperceptible, like an assiduous housekeeper dousing lanterns—it noiselessly went about and snuffed out, one by one, the mind's thousand small accesses to pleasure in the absence of the other.

There were some things a thief could never steal, nor a king conquer and take for his own. Though he could stir it up and watch it bloom from afar, tasting its sweet nectar upon her lips, she would deny him the gift of ever claiming it. Zelda knew that to give him her heart would be to invite his demons to feast upon it until nothing but a withered husk remained.

But for as long as a man still cleaved to her door in the dead of night, haunting the empty silence undefined hours often brought, her body seemed a fitting sacrifice to keep their pains at bay.

Slender fingers moved to brush the awful marking on the back of his hand—claiming him for a purpose far more sinister than these quiet moments would have her believe—as it crept toward her hair. Golden eyes strayed toward the marking on hers in turn, and knew these precious hours would soon run out. She drew his hand close to rest cold cheek upon the knuckle, and wistfully he beheld the soft lines of her face in the shadows. Slowly he drew his vision down upon her naked form, able to pluck the lithe curvature of her frame from memory though the sight was never so potent in his mind as it was laid out before him.

The Gerudo saw carved of her pale flesh the very image of her country's splendour; the fluid grace of the rivers, the pristine clarity of Lake Hylia. He saw the lush fields rolling across her toned stomach, the sands of the desert whipped about in her golden tresses, and the blue skies reaching to the furthest horizon within her eyes. Her chest risen with breath to evoke the mountains, elegant limbs like the forest trees.

He knew as well as she did this would not last, doomed to be buried beneath old habits and greater callings, even as crimson locks tumbled from his shoulders to surround her beautiful face. He knew it was the greatest sin to brush his lips against hers like he did, dragging his bones atop her fragile form with want.

But entwined within the drum-beat strains of their sordid and bleak passions, strokes taken as naturally as a ticking clock, they did not think of the painful consequences time spent this way would cost them when it finally ran out.

They only knew that lost time could never be found again.

**A/N:**

**I sat down today after work and I felt something bubbling in the back of my head, and I had no idea what it was until I started writing it. I was quite tired, and I wasn't in a thinking mood. In fact, I hadn't intended on writing today. I didn't have any clue as to where this would go, or why it wanted to be written. It just did.**

**I knew it was going to be short and wordy, but somehow I could tell it wouldn't fit in with the other drabbles in Notes to a Melody.**

**But now that it's out there... Good job brain. ZelGan is always a win.**

**Onwards to Glory!**


End file.
